Originally published on February 26, 2025 by the San Francisco Chronicle and written by Shira Stein

San Mateo Democrat Kevin Mullin spent Tuesday morning in a Bay Area hospital, but by evening he was in Washington to vote against a Republican budget resolution that is the centerpiece of President Donald Trump’s agenda.

Rep. Mullin has dealt with medical complications after what was a routine knee surgery to repair a torn meniscus in late January. He was supposed to recover in a few days, but developed a blood clot in his calf in early February and then developed an infection in his knee several weeks later that has kept him hospitalized since.

Mullin spoke with the Chronicle after voting against the resolution, which includes $4.5 trillion in tax cuts, $1.5 trillion in spending cuts from the committees that oversee agricultural and health care programs, $110 billion for immigration enforcement, $100 billion in military spending and a $4 trillion increase in how much money the U.S. can borrow.

Although flying while still grappling with the complications of the surgery was a risk, Mullin said it was important that he show up.

“I didn’t want to look back and say, ‘Hey, I could have done something and I didn’t,’” Mullin said. “I thought my vote could actually matter, so that’s why I’m here.”

House Republicans have a razor-thin majority of just three votes. Several Democrats have been absent due to health issues — Mullin, Rep. Brittany Pettersen of Colorado, who recently had her second child, and Rep. Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, who has largely been absent from Congress for the last year during treatment for lung cancer. Only Grijalva didn’t make the vote.

Without Pettersen and Mullin’s votes, House Speaker Mike Johnson could have lost three Republican votes and still had the resolution succeed. With their presence, however, he could only lose one. 

In the hours leading up to the vote, both Mullin and Pettersen’s staff kept their returns a secret, and neither was present for the votes held just prior to the budget resolution.

Mullin’s wife, Jessica Stanfill Mullin, said they went to the doctor Feb. 14 when his knee began swelling, and within hours of being admitted to the hospital he was being wheeled into a second surgery to drain the infection.

Mullin was hospitalized for several days, but his white blood cell count — a measure of the body’s immune system activity — wasn’t decreasing.

“So they said we got to go back in there and clean it out some more. So I was — I was not mentally prepared” for a third surgery, Mullin said.

The surgery was successful, but his infection wasn’t getting better, and he still needed to be hospitalized.

“They’ve been pumping me with antibiotics to try to get the infection under control,” Mullin said, but a few days ago his white blood cell count shot up to the 20s. The doctors were “concerned that they’ve done kind of everything they could do for me; why are my white blood cell (numbers) still so high?”

During his time in the hospital, Mullin told his doctors about the budget vote and the importance of being there for it.

“There’s always risk, right?” Mullin said. “You’re weighing all of that. And look, I want to be here for the vote, but I’m also not crazy. I needed to know that we’re doing everything we can medically and from a medication standpoint to put me in a good position to fly.”

Mullin said in the end, he didn’t need to convince his doctors to let him fly out for the vote.

“There was a consensus among the doctors, my surgeon, infectious diseases, the on-call doctor … and they said, ‘We think with his numbers going down a little bit, we think he’s OK to leave,’” Mullin said. 

He was discharged from the hospital Tuesday morning, and he and his wife — who needed to accompany him to administer his antibiotics, blood thinners, anti-inflammatory and pain medications — immediately drove to the airport.

Johnson didn’t appear to have the vote locked up just hours before it was scheduled to take place, with four members saying they would vote against the measure. Minutes before the vote was taken, it still wasn’t clear if he had the votes. 

Johnson dragged out the process while trying to secure the votes and initially said there would not be a vote on the budget resolution that evening.

But minutes later as members streamed out of the Capitol, Republican leaders abruptly changed their minds and brought members back to vote on the budget. Several Democrats nearly missed the vote, including Rep. Adam Gray of Turlock (Stanislaus County), who was one of the last to cast a vote.

Just one Republican ended up voting against the resolution, joining every Democrat present.

Although Mullin’s actual vote received little notice — even at his 6-foot-3 stature — the moment reporters spotted him in the Capitol, there was a flurry of activity to recount the number of votes Johnson could lose.

After the vote concluded, Mullin used a walker to move off the House floor and was greeted by several members of the California delegation who wanted to wish him well, including Reps. Sydney Kamlager-Dove of Los Angeles and Sam Liccardo of Palo Alto.

Mullin’s wife cried as she spoke about the patriotic duty they both felt in deciding to take the potential risk to his life and return to Washington for this bill.

Mullin said, “Of course it was a risk, but it was a risk I was willing to take. Why am I doing this job but to try to make an impact with votes like this? And I’m just disappointed we weren’t able to stop it.”

Mullin flew back to the Bay Area on Wednesday morning, and said he expects to return to Washington on Monday with a newly placed midline IV so he can administer his own medication.